an approach grounded in community-based participatory research practices: throughout this process, schools, local stakeholders and communities identify local relevant challenges, and transform them into relevant research and innovation projects.
Department de l'Instruction Publique / Schools which struggle with science teaching because of socio-economic factors / The way of teaching science / School dropouts / Citizens' commitment to the environment / Ourselves.
Grounded in
the community
Fab Lab
capabilities
Diversity
Science and
technology skills
Growing
organisation
Fab Lab Project Manager
OSHub-CH offers a methodology and practical tools to place schools at the centre of community projects about sustainability, science and technology by providing support to teachers and students.
Target public:
Secondary school students from pre and vocational schools (>15 years-old), teachers, Department of Public Education.
The scope of OSHub-CH | Cité de Science Ouverte programs are two-fold:
- On one hand, to demonstrate to young people the multidisciplinarity of societal challenges, offering the possibility to meet and work together with experts from many different areas (e.g. natural sciences, electronics, communication, european relations, stakeholder facilitation);
- And on the other hand, how to develop technological solutions for these societal challenges, namely in relation to sustainability, through research-based practices grounded on community relevant issues. Throughout this process, students and teachers are acquainted with the knowledge to better understand the problem and with the technical tools to design and make a technical device.
These projects are developed at Onl’fait, which due to its Fab Lab nature is equipped with the necessary technical skills and resources, and connected to several different networks and people from science, technology and innovation.
More specifically, throughout this process, the role of OSHub-CH is the following:
- To organise co-creation sessions with experts and/or students and/or local stakeholders to identify the community issues to tackle;
- To connect schools to experts to understand the importance of science and technology for sustainability, define the “research questions” related to the identified issue and discuss the role of scientific research in society;
- To connect schools to local stakeholders to gain relevant and real-world insight about the identified issue, namely by investigating its complexity and how public and private institutions are dealing with it;
- To offer a workspace, materials, tools and machines to develop the chosen technical solutions;
- To support teachers during the development of the project at school and to identify tasks that suit the different profiles of students;
- To promote the work of students in collaboration with the local community and different stakeholders.
Additionally, OSHub-CH also plays an advocacy role targeted at policy-makers, namely the Department of Public Education, by demonstrating the strengths of maker education, open schooling and transdisciplinarity.
OSHub-CH worked with 3 secondary schools in Geneva to develop sensors to measure the quality of water of the lake of Geneva and the CO₂ level in closed environments like classrooms, as well as creating biomaterials from waste. The topics for the investigation and prototyping were chosen during co-creation sessions where teachers and several types of stakeholders (policymakers, students, entrepreneurs, science communicators, researchers) were invited to exchange and discuss. Students were introduced to the topics by the Onl’fait team and by relevant scientific partners from HEPIA and the University of Geneva, who explained to students the importance of studying these issues and their actual research about the environment and climate. During the manual work at the Fab Lab, students worked in groups to make and prototype. Participants were also invited to work on documentation to disseminate the results of the project to their classmates (posters), to Fab Lab members (documentation on wiki), to the general public (expo at the Science museum and social networks) and to make research about local institutions working on the thematics of water and air quality.
Read more
Food waste and biomaterials:
Give a second life to food waste and fabricate biomaterials that can be used to produce small objects and accessories.
A co-creation tool to get familiar with the
Open Schooling methodology and to identify themes, resources and stakeholders involved
in implementing a programme in the local community. The tool has been adapted
from the Full Stack Tool Board, developed
by IAAC, Barcelona.
Set of guidelines for establishing and running
a Fab Lab, including materials, tools
and equipment, as well as safety recommendations.
